Whip-core.



G. E'. WHIPPLB.

WHIP com. I APPLICATION FILED AUG. 30, 1907.

981,147, Patented Jan. 16, 1911.

I: WIT/VESSES Wi/ N BY ATTORNEYS I THE NORRIS PETERS 0a., wnsnmarau, o. 2:.

UN l TED STATES IEATEIWI OFFICE.

GEORGE E. WHIPPLE, 0F WESTFIEIIIEVIASSAOITITSETTS, ASSIGNOR T0 UNITED STATES WHIP COMPANY, OF WESTFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS, A CORPORATION OF MAINE.

WHIP-CORE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Jan. 10, 1911.

Divided and this application filed August 30,

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, GEORGE E. WVI-IIPPLE, a citizen of the United States of America, residing at WVestfield, in the county of Hampden and State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful l/Vhip-Core, of which the following is a specification, the same being a divisional part of an application for United States Letters Patent filed by me July 16, 1906, and serially numbered 326,525.

My invention relates to improvements in the cores or centers of whips, and consists of a center made of a newly discovered material for the purpose, namely, fish skin, as hereinafter set forth.

The object of my invention is to produce a Whip center which, while not being nearly so expensive as a center made of whalebone, nearly or quite approaches the whalebone center in life, feel, elasticity, texture and appearance.

Heretofore whip cores have been made of whalebone and ratan and from hides and metal, but such cores have been found defective for various reasons. There is a scarcity of whalebone and it is so expensive as to render the use of this material for this purpose almost prohibitive. Cores made out of hides do not possess the hardness, elasticity and life of whalebone, the latter being as is well known an ideal material for Whip centers. Ratan cores are too brittle, and both ratan and metal are so lacking in the quality termed life as to be obj ectionable for this reason when manufactured into cores.

I have discovered that fish skin, especially the skin of the fish known as Sircm'a, among which are the dugong and the manatee, have a skin Well adapted to produce the desired result when treated in accordance with the method described in the aforesaid application and incorporated in a whip. These cores are closely allied in fibrous structure to whalebone.

In the accompanying drawing I show the major portion of a whip having part of the same cut away to show where the core emerges from the siding, such core embodying my invention.

In the drawing 1 indicates the fish skin core, 2 the siding, this and the core constituting the stock of the whip, and 3 the covering. The siding 2 is usually made of wood or ratan, and the covering 3 is braided onto the outside of said siding in the usual and well known manner.

The core or center 1, which is the essentially new feature of the whip shown, consists of a strip of fish skin of the kind specified which has been pickled in a lime water solution, treated with a solution of potash, also with a solution of one of the coal tar products known as indulines, stretched, and subjected to lateral pressure. This core is hard, elastic, and tough, is black through out, and has the feel, life and appearance of a piece of whalebone, but is free from the tendency to split or splinter which is a disadvantageous characteristic of the latter. The core is preserved, expanded and softened so that it can be stretched and treated with good results, and colored by and during the treatment of the same which has just been outlined briefly.

The core has a suitable exterior finish, and may be tapered for the whole or any part of its length if desired.

lVhile the cost of this core is less than onetenth of the cost of a similar core made of whalebone, at the same time the fish skin core possesses all of the advantageous properties of the whalebone core without the undesirable qualities of the same.

The equivalent or equivalents of any chemical or chemicals herein mentioned'may be substituted for the latter in treating the core.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

l. A whip core made of pickled, expanded and softened, dyed, stretched and dried fish skin.

2. A whip core made of pickled, expanded and softened, dyed, stretched, dried, and laterally pressed fish skin.

GEORGE E. WHIPPLE.

Vitnesses:

CHARLES F. ELY, CHARLES H. Snow. 

